Naveen Andrews Quotes

You want to be honest with a character and play it truthfully, and you want to be genuine with your character.

Just working on a character and his mannerisms, but not looking the part, is not my thing. It is your duty as an actor to be honest to the character.

You want to try and bring a character to life in an honest a way as you possibly can. It doesn't matter whether he's a doctor, an actor, a car salesman or a captain of a starship. If you can bring truth and honesty to that character, then your audience will believe you.

I don't really consider myself to be an actor of any particular style. My aim with every role I undertake is to be truthful and honest in that particular portrayal. I don't have a particular methodology from any one school of thought or training.

I don't like to objectify the people I play. I always try to go for the truth in any part.

Because I came to acting quite late, I kind of think one of the few attributes that I do have is that I try to be honest with the character, with the writing. I'm not a tricksy actor; I'm not exactly a scenery-chewing kind of actor.

You can't just skim the surface of any role. You have to find the depths, because any other way would be dishonest.

To me, acting is simple. People put other things in front of it, but it's staying in truth.

If you are, as an actor, are just worried about looking pretty and being well liked, then I personally feel you are doing a disservice to your audience, the craft, the creative process, writers, and directors. Your job is to tell a story and to tell the truth, and we can't always be the most likeable character in every situation.

I just try to be honest and true to the character and play the part.

If a scene isn't honest, it stands out like a sore thumb.

As always, with acting, you can't be too self-conscious. You shouldn't care about what people are thinking about you at the time because they're not caring about you, they're caring about the character.

I always thought that if you don't feel the breath in the actors' bodies, you lose all the intimacy and truth.

All I've ever tried to do is play real people.

I try to give each performance my own soul, to bring a truth to my character. Hopefully, when I bring that much truth to a character, it resonates with somebody, and it sparks some kind of emotion in them.

Any actor who is being honest will admit there's always a small or large part of the real you in every character. It's impossible not to have that.

I have too much respect for the characters I play to make them anything but as real as they can possibly be. I have a great deal of respect for all of them, otherwise I wouldn't do them. And I don't want to screw them by not portraying them honestly.

I've said before that the common perception that all good actors should be good liars is exactly the opposite; only bad actors lie when they act.

With any part you play, there is a certain amount of yourself in it. There has to be, otherwise it's just not acting. It's lying.

To stand up on the stage is to say to many people: Look at me. How can you do that without speaking the only truth you know? There is no such thing as an uncommitted actor.

It sounds maybe a little old fashioned, but the parts I want to play and I do play, you don't want to inject too much of your own personality. What you sacrifice then is a slight mystery.

I really don't want to go to work every day convincing myself of what I'm saying. I want the material to make me a better actor; then I try to return the favor to the material.

I don't have any theories about acting, and I don't think about how to do it, except that an actor shouldn't take himself too seriously, and shouldn't try to make acting something it isn't.

People assume actors are born liars, but I'd argue the actor's job is to tell the truth. And I've realised I'm not a good liar.

It's a challenge, writing about actors, especially a good actor, because you can't always tell when they're being honest and when they're pretending - that is, when they're acting. The really good ones don't always seem to know themselves.